


Yellow Bird

by Sheeana



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Backstory, F/F, Training
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-23 12:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9657212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: In the League, Sara left behind her fears, her mistakes, her regrets. She became someone else - something else.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



**2008**

Sara came awake with a strangled, shuddering gasp.

For one blinding, helpless, seemingly endless moment, she was trapped inside a nightmare of drowning. Her lungs ached with searing pain, a heavy weight bearing down on her chest that she couldn't shake, pulling her under the waves. Pulling her down into the dark depths of the sea.

She was going to die. And she was going to do it while Slade Wilson laughed darkly and squeezed the life out of her, while Ivo stared her down with his cold, empty eyes, while Oliver watched her and silently, wordlessly, _judged_ her. If her lungs weren't filled with water, she'd be screaming.

Then it hit her: she was breathing. She took one shaky breath followed by another. Then another, and another. She wasn't drowning. She was on dry land, lying on her back on hard ground and covered by a thin blanket. Her heart rate started to slow. She began to take in her surroundings.

The forest closed in around her, blocking off her view of a cloudy sky somewhere far above. She was lying in some kind of small clearing between a stand of trees. The only thing she could immediately discern was that she wasn't on Lian Yu anymore. The foliage was too lush, too green, too different. With a small groan of effort, she sat up, hugging herself and massaging an aching elbow with her fingers. A moment later she pulled the blanket close around her shoulders. The air was cold, but at least it wasn't freezing.

She wasn't alone, she realized with a start. A woman was sitting near a fire, sharpening a blade with a rounded stone. She was dressed in simple, dark clothes, her long hair was tied back, and she didn't appear to be paying Sara any attention at all.

For a moment, Sara froze. She considered her options. She could try to escape, but she was exhausted, injured - possibly seriously - and had no idea where she was. She could try to overpower the other woman, but there was something about the way she held herself that told Sara it wouldn't end well for her. She straightened her back and set her jaw. If she was a prisoner, she was at least going to go down fighting. She'd had enough of submitting.

"Where am I?" she demanded. A few stray memories came to the surface. Vaguely, she remembered hands on her shoulders, guiding her, the rocking feeling of a boat, sipping at warm broth while a soft voice murmured in her ear. Everything was distant and indistinct. She'd been alone for so long. The days had started to blur together as she waited, surviving for no reason, waking up every day with no hope of rescue. The whole world thought she was dead.

Without looking up, the other woman replied, "I found you dying on Lian Yu. I brought you here."

The casual, indifferent tone, combined with the thought of being anywhere but stranded in hell, deflated some of Sara's defiance. She struggled to move closer to the fire, where she held out her hands over the flames to warm them. As soon as she could feel her fingers again, she glanced over at the woman again. "Where is here? And... who are you?" 

"My name is Nyssa al Ghul." 

Clearly she was expecting some kind of reaction to this revelation. Sara's face remained blank. She pulled her arms in close to her body and wrapped the blanket tighter around her shoulders, shivering slightly.

"I am the daughter of Ra's al Ghul, the head of the League of Assassins."

"Still... not ringing any bells. The who?"

"The League of Assassins. We are an ancient order of warriors who have cleansed the world of corruption for thousands of years."

"Sorry, I must have... dozed off during that part of history class..." When that netted Sara no reaction, she tried something else. "Your dad - Raz al whatever - he's the leader? So you're- what, some kind of princess?"

"No." Placing aside the sword resting across her lap, Nyssa lifted a bowl off the rocks near the fire and placed it on Sara's lap. Then she picked up the blade and resumed her work. "Eat. It's still warm."

Sara eyed the thick stew with apprehension, but Nyssa had apparently been nursing her back to health for days at least. If she wanted Sara dead, she'd already be dead by now. She might as well eat. It was only after she had some food in her stomach that she realized how _hungry_ she was. All the supplies on Lian Yu had either burned in the airplane fire or sunk with the Amazo. She'd been reduced to foraging scraps of food she could find in the forest and wishing she'd joined the Girl Scouts or at least gone camping more often when she was a kid.

After licking the last of the stew off her fingertip, she set aside the bowl. "Why are you helping me?" she asked. "You don't know me. It's not like I have anything to pay you with. No one even knows I'm alive."

"You were dying."

"So?" Sara said bitterly. "Who cares?"

There was a moment of silence filled with nothing but the sound of wood crackling in the fire while Nyssa hesitated. "You... survived alone on Lian Yu. That kind of determination is worth something in the League."

"Is it? Because I couldn't save my friend, and I couldn't save myself. If you hadn't found me I'd be dead."

"Allowing you to die would have served no purpose. Come with me. There is nothing left for you there." 

The invitation contained a dark undertone, like maybe it wasn't an invitation at all, but Sara was sick at heart and she was so _tired_. Where else did she have to go? What else did she have to lose? She could never stand in front of her family and look into their eyes now. Her father, her mother, Laurel, accusing her the same way Oliver did every time she closed her eyes. She could barely remember Sara Lance, carefree college student. Sara Lance, loving sister and daughter. Sara Lance, stupid girl who got on a boat with a billionaire playboy and burned everything she cared about to the ground.

Not to mention Oliver's family. She tried to imagine telling Moira and Thea what had happened and felt sick. He might still be alive if she'd never cooperated with Ivo. A lot of things might be different if she'd made different choices.

"Come with you where?" she said.

"To Nanda Parbat. The city of the League."

"What if I say no?" She said it without much conviction.

"Then I will let you walk away, and you will never know the things I could teach you."

It wasn't a horrifying realization so much as a truth that had snuck up on her slowly over the course of months. She had absolutely nothing left to lose. She might have been rescued, but she'd been lost at sea and drifting since the Queen's Gambit sank. She'd come untethered. And besides - some part of her was curious, eager to learn more about this mysterious woman and where she'd come from. Even if Nyssa did let her go, she'd never know if she walked away now.

"Okay," she said, breathing deeply, breathing slowly, making the decision before she had time to use logic or fall into false hope about what might be waiting for her in Starling City. "I'll go with you."

Something seemed to occur to Nyssa then. She looked up again from the blade she'd resumed sharpening. "What is your name?"

"... Sara. Sara Lance. I'm from-"

"I don't care where you came from. I don't care what brought you to Lian Yu. Forget your old life, Sara Lance. From this moment you are my student. The woman you were dies here today. You will train with us, and when you become an initiate of the League, you will choose a new name."

The thought brought Sara no fear, no reluctance. Only relief.

"Now rest," said Nyssa. "We leave at dawn."

***

The 'city' that Nyssa was referring to was like nothing Sara had ever seen. It was hewn into the rock and stone of the mountains, hundreds of twisting, narrow tunnels opening into vast, intricately carved chambers or caves with spectacular outcroppings, lit by the flickering light of thousands of lanterns, lamps, and candles. To reach it, they walked for hours through the forest. Then they took a plane from a run-down little town to a larger city, where they picked up some supplies before they set out and trekked for days along winding rivers, through narrow gorges and valleys, until finally they walked through a massive stone gateway carved into the mountainside. Along the way, Nyssa said little and revealed even less. Sara contented herself with being in the company of another human being while she gained some of her lost strength back.

Her training began immediately and suffered no excuses. She hadn't even washed the dust of their journey from her skin when Nyssa led her into an open, empty room and thrust out a roughly-sanded wooden staff.

"Here. Take it."

She took the staff more because she seemed to have no choice than because she was accepting anything, but then she tested its weight in her hands, considering it. Her time on the island had left her accustomed to holding a gun. The balance of the staff was awkward in her untrained hands.

"Strike me," Nyssa ordered.

"But-" The protest died in Sara's throat. She used to think she didn't have the stomach for it, but now she knew the truth. It was kill or be killed. Why shouldn't she learn to fight?

She swung the staff with all her strength - and missed. Nyssa had sidestepped the blow, letting Sara swing wildly into thin air.

"Strike me," Nyssa said again, as calm as if they were simply sitting together and chatting about the weather.

Frustrated, Sara tightened her grip on the staff, corrected her stance to the way Oliver had taught her, and tried again. This time she feinted right and then swung to the left at the last second. The next thing she knew she was lying empty-handed on her back, staring up at Nyssa, who had somehow seized the staff and disrupted Sara's balance in a single, unbelievably quick movement.

"I said," Nyssa snarled, as she threw it onto the ground beside Sara, "Strike me."

Sara's fingers scrambled against the stone until she found the staff. When they closed around it, she began to get back to her feet. They'd been sparring for less than ten minutes and her entire body was already aching and bruised, in addition to the aches and bruises left over from her ordeal on the island and the long journey to Nanda Parbat.

"How am I supposed to 'strike you' if you just keep throwing me on the ground?" she snapped, after the sixth time she'd picked herself up and taken up her position facing Nyssa again. Each time she fell, she moved a little slower.

"First," Nyssa replied, as she came at Sara again and seized her staff, wrenching it from her grasp, "You must learn perseverance." She lunged. Recoiling, Sara stumbled over the edge of an uneven part of the floor; Nyssa took the opportunity to sweep Sara off her feet, landing her once again on her back. "Then," she said, bringing the butt of the staff down hard against the stone beside Sara's head, "You must learn _patience_."

The breath had been knocked from Sara's lungs. It took her a moment to stop coughing and gulp in enough air to answer. "You're gonna teach me patience by knocking me down over and over? Because between you and me? Right now what I feel is a lot closer to annoyance."

"I'm going to teach you by giving you a chance to teach yourself." Nyssa held out a hand like an olive branch, and Sara took it. "You are too brash. You strike too quickly. Calm down. Breathe before you attack. Be aware of more than your opponent. Always use your surroundings to your advantage."

With a scowl, Sara used the leverage Nyssa had offered her to pull herself up to her feet. She took up the same stance as before, but this time she made sure she was standing on flat, even ground. Nyssa tossed her the staff.

"Again," she said. Still scowling, Sara obeyed.

***

It was five days before she was brought before Ra's al Ghul to be presented to him as the League's newest recruit. He made an imposing figure, standing there in robes that brushed against the floor, but she was tired, sick at heart, and long past being intimidated.

Other League members looked on as she knelt down in front of him. They spoke words in Arabic that she didn't understand. What she understood, from what Nyssa had told her and from the way Ra's stood towering over her with his hand on the hilt of his sword, was that there was no going back. Once she made an oath to the League, she was bound to them forever.

Ra's lowered his head and spoke near her ear. "Will you honor the traditions of the League of Assassins, Sara Lance? Will you dedicate yourself to its teachings and give yourself over to its guidance?"

"I will," she said, and so sealed her fate.

***

Life in Nanda Parbat happened to a predictable rhythm. Nothing was done without a purpose. Sara's days followed a welcome routine, one of those things she hadn't known she would miss until it was gone. Like coffee and eight a.m. classes and getting into pointless arguments with Laurel. Here, she rose each morning with the dawn and fell into bed each night with new aches and pains, only to rise again the next day and do it all over again. Her muscles cried out for a reprieve. It was never given. Training never stopped, even when she wasn't learning how to fight.

Every day, from mid-morning until noon, she knelt on a hard stone floor and watched Nyssa's finger moving methodically from right to left while her lips moved in unison with them. Through sheer repetition, Sara began to learn Arabic letters and then, once her mouth had learned to form the sounds, words and sentences. And it wasn't just learning a language. She was also learning the art of calligraphy.

Nyssa was just as harsh in teaching language as she was in teaching combat. Every mistake was met with a rebuke. Every slip of the hand earned a sharp correction. She demanded the same kind of precision and grace here as in the rest of Sara's training. But when Sara took up a brush and dipped it in ink, she was gentle in reaching over and guiding the movements of her hand. 

"Patience," Nyssa reminded her, again and again. "You've been practicing for weeks. It will take you decades to master."

"So let's see you do better," Sara muttered once, as she looked down at her latest clumsy attempt at copying out a verse of League history with a critical eye. She could practically _feel_ Nyssa doing the same over her shoulder.

"Very well. Watch, then." Sometimes Nyssa seemed to drip with arrogance, but she'd never actually seen her show off until she saw her dip her pen into the ink and then, in a flurry of sweeping, graceful movements and small, sharp flourishes, she took words and shaped them into the image of a flower in full bloom.

"Nyssa, that's..." Sara was unable to conceal her awe. She couldn't understand half of what Nyssa had written, but even her untrained eye could see the intricacy of the image, half poetry and half drawing. It stunned her - the revelation that someone so guarded was capable of creating something so beautiful.

"That is the result of years of practice, Sara. I've been learning since I was a girl." The moment the ink had dried, she took the scroll, rolled it up, and handed it to Sara. "Keep it until you learn to do the same?"

***

For days at a time, Sara could lose herself in her training. But even in the isolated and timeless halls of Nanda Parbat, her nightmares chased her from sleep into wakefulness. She could only escape them when she was moving, when Nyssa was ordering her to _get up_ and _fight back_ and the only thing on her mind was achieving a singular goal. As soon as she was alone in the cramped, spartan room they'd given her, lying on her narrow, hard bed as the light from the single candle died away, she was back on the Amazo. Back on Lian Yu. Sometimes it was Slade who chased her through the trees; sometimes it was Ivo. Occasionally, on particularly bad nights, it was Oliver firing arrows that landed with sickening thuds into the trunks as she dodged between them.

The horrors that pursued her through her dreams began to bleed into her training. She was tired, progressing more slowly than she should have been, and making too many mistakes to go unnoticed for long. Nyssa finally saw her distracted, blank expression in her fourth week with the League. They were halfway through an afternoon training session when Sara missed a move that Nyssa had deliberately telegraphed, stumbled over Nyssa's staff, and landed hard on the ground, wincing and crying out at the pain that instantly shot through her knee.

The moment the proverbial dust cleared, Nyssa stepped back to survey the damage. Wearily, Sara sat up and braced herself for the reprimand that she knew was coming.

"Come with me," Nyssa ordered instead. Her expression was unreadable.

Curious, Sara followed her down one pillar-lined corridor into a tunnel that had been roughly carved into the rock, then through a series of twists and turns that she was only just beginning to map in her head. Finally they emerged into a room that was open to the mountainside, looking out onto the sky and the valleys below.

"Kneel." Nyssa nodded at the floor. It was bare stone, but clear of dust and debris. 

Sara knelt. Nyssa knelt beside her, her back perfectly straight, her hands coming to rest in her lap, her eyes closing.

"Close your eyes and clear your mind. Cleanse yourself of your worries, your anger, your self. Become an empty vessel."

Obediently, Sara's eyelids fell shut. At first she tried not to think about anything at all, but soon she was replaying yesterday's training session in her mind - how she could have feinted to the left rather than the right, how she should have rolled when she hit the floor, where she could have struck Nyssa to bring her to her knees. And then her thoughts drifted back to bigger regrets. She should never have said yes to Oliver. She shouldn't have gotten on the Gambit. She should have insisted that they had no choice but to deal with Slade before it was too late. She should have fought harder, should have-

"I said to clear your mind."

"Clear it of what, Nyssa?" she snapped. "Of what I did to my family, of what happened on the island before you showed up, because it's kind of hard to forget betraying everyone I cared about-"

"None of that matters now," said Nyssa sharply. It was stern, but softer than it needed to be. Sara cracked open one eye and peeked at her. "You are not the first lost soul who has made her way to the League. I told you when I found you. What you did or didn't do is in the past. Now your life is here, and you must learn to clear your mind."

"It's not exactly easy."

"Things worth doing rarely are."

Sara closed her eyes and tried again. When she felt the warm weight of Nyssa's hand on her shoulder, she said nothing. Instead, she just renewed her efforts - but it felt like she was striving for something that would forever be hovering just a few inches out of reach.

***

"Again," said Nyssa, and Sara got up.

"Again," she repeated, when Sara faltered. " _Again_."

***

Sparring began to come easier, but meditation continued to elude her. She would sit for hours watching the sky - sometimes so bright it hurt to look at, sometimes dark and stormy, occasionally blank and white as a sheet of late spring snow fell over the mountains - and trying _not_ to think. Some of it started to fade away into a dull ache in the back of her mind, but there were some things she would never forget. The look on her mom's face when Sara showed her her college acceptance letter. The sound of Laurel's laughter. The smell of her dad's cooking. Those things stayed with her, no matter how far she ran or how hard she threw herself into her training. They would probably haunt her until the day she died.

***

One morning Nyssa wrapped a bright red scarf loosely around her neck and led Sara deep into the complex of caves.

"Your job is to take this from me," she said, fingering the scarf. "Mine is to stop you from taking it."

"I'm _guessing_ there's gonna be a catch here."

"A small one. Before you can take it, first you'll have to catch me," she said, and then with a smirk added, "If you can." 

Then she fled. Sara stood there stupidly for a moment until she started after her, which was long enough for her to disappear into the warren of tunnels and rooms of Nanda Parbat.

Weeks and weeks of getting lost and turned around until she'd started learning its passages had paid off at last. She chased Nyssa for nearly an hour before she cornered her in an empty storeroom deep within the caves. They fought fiercely, Nyssa refusing to give an inch and Sara determined to finally take one.

When Nyssa finally pressed her down to the ground and pinned her there with her knees, she was forced to admit defeat. She held up her hands, baring her wrists and indicating surrender.

"I win," said Nyssa, tired and triumphant and draped in red. Watching her from her place on the floor, Sara suddenly found herself breathless for a different reason entirely. The words she was about to say caught in her throat, and for a a few seconds she was silent. She simply let this strange moment of peace stay intact.

But her pride was still at stake. So while Nyssa was leaning back and running her fingers through her tangled hair, Sara reached up to pull down the scarf.

"Not so fast," she teased. She was still in the process of wrapping it around herself when Nyssa rolled off her, snatched it away again, and ran. This time she didn't hesitate before she followed.

***

On the first day of her second month in Nanda Parbat, she came into their usual sparring room to find Ra's al Ghul waiting for her. He was facing away from her, his back to the door.

"Where's Nyssa?" she dared to ask, hesitating in the doorway.

"I will be your teacher today, Sara Lance," he said. When he turned to face her, she saw that he was holding his sword unsheathed in his hand. "Are you prepared?"

For lack of any other options, she bowed her head respectfully and took up her position.

He scowled at her as he readied his blade, but his voice was utterly, terrifyingly calm. "You may have convinced my daughter, but the League requires more than words. It requires absolute commitment from its members."

No amount of preparation could have taught her to respond to the way he fought. When he struck, he struck like a viper - lightning fast and deadly. Fighting Ra's al Ghul was everything and nothing like fighting Nyssa. Sara could instantly see that Ra's had imparted his own knowledge onto his daughter. Nyssa's movements were an echo of her father's, but he was more than Nyssa's grace and vicious precision. He was brutality personified. On a lucky day, Sara could almost hold her own against Nyssa. Ra's had her on the ground in moments, the edge of his blade pressed against her neck.

"Have you given yourself over to the League?" he demanded. "Answer one question. Would you die for me, girl?"

She watched him and said nothing. She knew what the consequences might be, and still she said nothing.

"Would you die for me?" he repeated, more softly.

The silence hanging between them was punctuated by the quiet sound of someone inhaling sharply at the entrance to the room. Sara tilted her head back as far as she dared to see who it was.

"Father," said Nyssa, staring down at Sara with another of her inscrutable expressions. It wasn't rebuke in her voice, it couldn't be, but there was suddenly a new kind of tension buzzing in the air. Sara stayed absolutely still. "I can take over her training from here. She is not yet ready for your teachings, father."

As if he hadn't heard her, Ra's kept his gaze on Sara, his sword never wavering at her throat. "Answer my question."

"Yes," Sara replied, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at Nyssa. "I'm committed. I'd die for you."

He relented. She stayed on her back until Nyssa held out a hand and helped her to her feet. They resumed their training wordlessly, but Sara sensed that Ra's wouldn't let her off the hook so easily. If she lived long enough, one day she might come to regret her reluctance.

***

Her training continued. She tested different weapons - sometimes the staff, sometimes two smaller ones, sometimes a blade. Some days they sparred in the cave where Nyssa had given her first lesson. Sometimes Nyssa took her into the mountains, and they climbed until Sara's fingers were chafed and raw and freezing, even through thick leather gloves. Once, they dressed in warm furs and climbed all the way to the summit of one of the smaller mountains, and spent the morning silently sipping tea in the snow and looking out over what felt like the whole world.

Nyssa brought her down into the forest and taught her which plants could be brewed into herbal teas that would prevent infection or reduce fever - and which ones could be distilled into deadly poisons to coat her weapons. She took Sara into the city and taught her to blend into the crowd, to make herself invisible by cloaking herself in the clothing of the people around her. They ran across rooftops at night, vaulting over ledges and hanging from balconies, and Sara learned to mask the sound of her footsteps. She learned to blend into the shadows and move unseen and unheard.

In addition to her constant training with Nyssa, she began to spar with other members of the League. She learned quickly that no one kept their own name. They took titles and shed their past identities. She never knew most of her opponents for who they were. Instead, she came to know them by the way they moved when they fought. Nyssa was calm, fluidity and deadly grace, a hooded cobra waiting to strike. Ra's al Ghul was the sheer, unstoppable force of a deadly typhoon. Al Owal planted himself like a tree and refused to let his stance be broken. Sarab danced across the floor, always a hair out of reach. To survive, she had to learn to adapt her style to all of them.

Language lessons became history lessons, lessons on the League's traditions. She learned to name the mountain ranges and their peaks, to list a hundred ceremonial rituals and weapons, to recite the words of the sacred oaths taken by each of its members since its foundation. Most of it remained meaningless to her. The rest of them could be true believers, for all she knew; she was just here to forget.

Weeks became months. Her mind learned discipline while her body hardened. Cuts became scars, blisters became calluses, nightmares dulled and faded into distant memories. And on the floor of the sparring room, her progress began to make itself apparent.

"Get up," Nyssa said sharply.

Wiping blood from her mouth, Sara got back to her feet. This time she didn't immediately try to strike back. She circled around Nyssa a few times, testing her footing, looking for weaknesses. Nyssa didn't have many. She was balanced, steady, and hyper aware of every detail around her. But she favored her right arm over her left, and sometimes Sara got lucky when she feinted backward, pivoted, swung and-

Nyssa hissed at the contact, dropping her staff as she tripped and caught herself on one knee. "Good," she said. For the first time since she'd woken up in a forest and found that she wasn't alone, Sara thought it might be _pride_ she was reading in Nyssa's usually hardened gaze - for about half a second, when it was replaced by that stern, unrelenting look that Nyssa always wore while they trained. "... Again."

And again, Sara took up her weapons, checked her footing, and threw herself back into the fight.

***

As summer faded into winter, they started to spend their evenings together, playing games of strategy, reading, or sometimes just talking quietly, usually in Nyssa's quarters, where they could speak more freely. Some topics, Sara had learned, were taboo even for the daughter of Ra's al Ghul - the most notable being the subject of life outside the dictates of the League.

"You can't tell me you've never had Big Belly Burger."

"There is no time for frivolous distractions on a mission."

"Trust me, their chocolate milkshakes are the last thing I'd call frivolous."

Their laughter died down slowly, fading away in the low light of the candles. The sheets on Nyssa's bed were silk and embroidered with brilliantly colored flowers and birds, in stark contrast to the muted colors of the rest of the room. Sara fingered a bright yellow bird, her smile turning melancholy for a moment.

"Sara?" Nyssa glanced over at her.

"It reminds me of my dad," she said, in a sudden, dangerous fit of honesty. She'd always had a stubborn streak. "When I was a little girl, he got me a pet canary. She used to start chirping really, really early in the morning, before the sun even came up. It drove my mom nuts."

She expected the rebuke to be swift and sharp. She expected anger, a reminder that now her life was the League and the League was her life.

She didn't expect Nyssa to reach out and trace around the shape of the bird, their fingers bumping and then, too slowly to be anything but deliberate, tangling together when she reached the tail feathers.

"Tell me about your family," Nyssa murmured.

"I thought..." She swallowed hard. "I thought you said they don't matter anymore."

"And I thought you hadn't listened."

Sara looked at her for a long moment, trying to read sense into her words. When she found none, she wet her lips and kept talking anyway. "... My mom's a professor and my dad's a police officer in Starling City. They were pretty happy, when I left. My sister, Laurel, she-" Even a world away from her and long past any right to forgiveness, she nearly choked on Laurel's name. "-she's gonna be a lawyer. At least, that was what she wanted before. Who knows what happened since they found out I died."

Nyssa listened without comment. Their hands were still entwined, resting over the sheets. Sara had never been so grateful for silence. Because whatever Nyssa might have said - acceptance, kindness, dismissal - none of it would have lessened the ache in her heart. For just a moment, she let herself feel _all_ of it. The guilt, the grief, the longing for a chance to go back in time and do better. Then she brought herself back under control. She closed her eyes, breathed in, breathed out, and hid everything behind the mask that every League member learned to wear. A moment later it was as if she hadn't felt anything at all.

"What about your dad?" she asked. "Will you become the head of the League after him?"

A flicker of something came over Nyssa's face. Hesitation, doubt. Maybe even fear. Nothing that she allowed herself to show in front of anyone but Sara. "If I should prove worthy."

"Nyssa," Sara said fiercely. She moved closer on the bed, then - boldly - lifted her hand to brush her thumb along Nyssa's jaw. "You don't need to _prove_ anything. Not to me. You saved my life. You gave me a new one when I thought I had nothing. You're already worthy."

Nyssa responded by kissing her.

There was a moment before it even registered. A moment of surprise, followed by warmth rushing into her body, running through her veins, filling her to her core. She'd never thought she would feel anything like this again - like she was humming with electricity. Like there was still something in the world that she _wanted_.

She slid her hands into Nyssa's hair, cradled her head, and kissed her back gladly. Without breaking the kiss, she moved to press Nyssa down against the bed. Her knees pinned her there the same way Nyssa often pinned her to the floor while they sparred. For all she cared, they could have been alone in the world. Just the two of them, entangling themselves so deeply in each other that she didn't know how they could ever let go again.

After, they lay beside each other in the dark. The only light came from the last failing candle on the floor.

Nyssa was the one who broke the silence, her voice barely more than a whisper. "If I do prove worthy, then I know I will carry out my duties faithfully. You will be at my side."

Sara slotted her fingers between Nyssa's and brought her hand to her lips, pressing them against her skin like an oath.

***

"His name is Phillip Monroe," said Nyssa. She handed Sara an unremarkable photo of a brown-haired man in glasses. They were standing in a second-storey safehouse Nyssa kept in Hong Kong. Sara was busy checking whether she'd secured her knife to her belt. "An American businessman visiting China to trade in information. He will be your test. You will get in, take his life, and get out without being seen. If you succeed, then you will be initiated into the League. If you fail..."

There was no need to tell Sara what would happen if she failed. She'd lived with the League for nearly a year. She'd read their laws. She'd seen what happened to failed recruits.

She was also confident that she wasn't going to fail.

Even in the quiet hours just before morning, cities never slept. But Sara knew how to fade away now. She moved in near-complete silence, running along the edges of buildings and through narrow alleys, scaling the sides of buildings and making her way from one balcony to the next until she slipped unseen into a room through an open window.

She looked down at Monroe, lying there in his bed. She should have felt something, she thought. It should matter that she was about to take a life. Not an innocent life - this man had earned his place in the League's sights through corruption and a trail of bodies - but she still should have felt _something_.

Instead, she remembered Ivo. That last moment, when he looked up at her and she couldn't stomach what needed to be done.

She cleared her mind.

When it was over, she wiped her blade on his dark sheets. The rest was easy - retracing her steps, never making a sound, never attracting any attention. She only dropped the black veil from her face when she was standing in front of Nyssa again.

"It's done," she told her. "Let's go."

***

In preparation for her initiation as a full member of the League, she underwent a series of purifying rituals. She bathed herself twice, once in cold water and once in hot. She washed away her past and her identity. And when she had been made clean, she knelt at the edge of the steaming bath while Nyssa's fingers combed through her hair, coating it with a spiced oil. Incense burned all around them, hanging heavy in the air.

When she stood, Nyssa clothed her all in black. Each fold was carefully arranged, each knot carefully tied. Her chosen weapons - two short staffs - were strapped to her back.

"I have something for you," Nyssa murmured near her ear, when her hands had finally finished arranging the ceremonial outfit and fell away from Sara's shoulders.

Sara turned around to face her and found her bending down to kneel on the floor, her eyes cast down on the floor as she presented Sara with a small blade.

"What is it?" Sara asked, as she pulled it from its black leather sheath.

"Yours," Nyssa replied, her tone overly formal, her head still bowed.

Sara cradled the knife in her hands like it was sacred - because to Nyssa, it was. Engraved along the mirror-smooth metal of the blade were words. She traced her fingertip along the letters, sounding them out to herself. 

"Al ta'er al asfar," she pronounced. "The yellow bird."

Impulsively, she set the knife aside, knelt down, and took Nyssa's hands into her own. "Thank you," she said fervently. "Thank you for saving me. Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for showing me how much there was that I didn't know, that I couldn't even begin to imagine."

Nyssa lifted her eyes to Sara's and held her gaze. "I am honored to fight at your side, Sara Lance."

***

Ra's al Ghul stood on the raised dais in the massive chamber at the heart of Nanda Parbat. At his side stood the rest of the League, every member assembled to see their new sister anointed. Nyssa was an anonymous face among the rest, but Sara knew she was watching. Their voices were raised as one, chanting ancient words that echoed around the pillars and statues and the ceiling far above.

"Come forward," said Ra's.

She came forward and she knelt at his feet. Her knees barely felt the roughness of the stone floor; she'd fallen against it so many times during her training, spent so many hours kneeling on it while she meditated. Her skin was crisscrossed with the scars and still-healing cuts.

"What name will you take?" he asked.

She told him.

He touched her shoulder, and she stood. She spoke the oath, intoning the words exactly as Nyssa had taught her.

"This initiate has proven herself," Ra's said. "She has shown commitment to the League and to its laws. We welcome her. From this day forth, she will not be known as Sara Lance. She will be known as al ta'er al asfar."

When she rose to her feet and secured her veil across her face, she wasn't Sara Lance anymore. She was remade in the dark, impersonal clothes of the League. She had lost herself in a place that was outside of time, a place where her own ugly choices were distant and meaningless. They had molded her into someone else - into something else.

She had no more regrets. Her past couldn't find her here.

***

Christiane Olivier. Ibrahim Hussain. Arthur Leon. Sandra Neumann. Name after name. Mission after mission. The details changed but the broad strokes stayed the same; she got in, she got out. She was never seen and never heard. Sometimes Nyssa accompanied her, sometimes she was alone. Sometimes there were other League members lurking in the shadows at her side. She never questioned it. There was peace in anonymity.

***

"You're hurt."

"Not badly." Sara was lying flat on her back on Nyssa's bed, her leg stretched out and bare, her pants pushed up to her knee. Her ankle was resting on Nyssa's lap.

Frowning, Nyssa turned Sara's ankle in her hands, taking in her reaction. A slight sound escaped her lips. "Badly enough. You need rest."

"I need company," Sara replied, flippant. "I'm fine. It barely even hurts."

Undeterred, Nyssa pursued her interrogation. "What happened? You were right behind me, and then you were gone."

"I slipped when I was dodging that arrow. I had to go back the long way."

"You weren't careful." Suddenly the blindingly obvious became apparent: the harshness underlying Nyssa's tone wasn't anger but _worry_ , and Sara wanted to laugh. She didn't, though. Nyssa's pride wouldn't permit it.

"Nyssa, I'm fine. _You've_ hurt me worse than this while we were sparring." She gently pushed Nyssa's arm away and shifted onto her knees, ignoring the slight twinge of pain in her ankle. She took Nyssa's face in her hands. "Look at me. You taught me to survive. I'm not leaving you, because this is my life now. I don't want to go back."

Nyssa closed her eyes, leaned into Sara's touch. She brought up her hand and set it over Sara's. "Sometimes I fear that I've taught you too much."

"You gave me my name," Sara murmured. She pressed a kiss to Nyssa's mouth. Then another. And another.

They didn't speak for a long time after that.

***

Sparring became dancing. Nyssa didn't telegraph her attacks anymore, but Sara didn't need her to. She read patterns in her footsteps, found a rhythm in their movements. When her body hit the floor it was usually deliberate, dodging a sweep of Nyssa's staff or rolling to break a fall. She'd found her own style - quick and sharp and venomous, using speed and unpredictability to make up for her small stature.

The first time she found herself kneeling over Nyssa, pointing one of her short staffs at her throat, there was a thrill of adrenaline running through her veins and pumping in time with her heart. She broke into a grin.

"I surrender," Nyssa said dryly, holding up her hands in mock defeat.

Sara relented and got back to her feet. "Again," she said, offering Nyssa her hand.

***

It started to feel like flying, when they moved together through city streets under the cover of darkness. Sara's feet were light on the rooftop tiles. Her body felt weightless when she flung herself off the edge of one roof and landed on the next. Nyssa was always just one step ahead or one step behind. They weren't training anymore. When they slipped through the window into the home of their latest target, they did so with a singular, shared purpose.

Silence hung over the house as they crept through the rooms. They were in and out before anyone even knew they were there.

And then they dropped through another window into Nyssa's Tokyo safehouse and shared a different kind of kinship. They lay in bed murmuring to each other and laughing for what felt like hours, curled around and tangled in each other. The rest of the world might as well have ceased to exist.

"I want you to accompany me to America tomorrow," Nyssa said suddenly.

Sara reached out to trace the shape of her jaw, grinning when Nyssa caught her hand and kissed it. "America?"

"My next target is in Central City. I want you at my side."

"Are you sure? Not afraid I'm gonna run away as soon as my feet hit US soil?"

"My father's opinion of you is meaningless to me. You know how I feel."

"But you defied him when you made me your student. He never wanted me in the League."

Nyssa laughed openly. "And you think it was not a good choice? You would rather that I left you on Lian Yu? Or that I never brought you to Nanda Parbat to teach you?"

"No, but I think it was pretty dangerous. You didn't know anything about me."

"You are not my student, Sara Lance. You are my partner. I trust the choice that I made. I also trust the one that you made."

"I trust _you_ ," Sara replied. With a cheeky smile pulling at the corners of her lips, she leaned in to kiss the tip of Nyssa's nose, earning her renewed laughter and Nyssa's weight pressing her down against the bed, leaving her no choice but to respond in kind.

***

She didn't run away. She clung to the shadows. Her knife found its target, over and over and over again until their faces began to blur together and their names lost any meaning. She never once doubted Nyssa's silent, invisible presence at her side. When she was out there, her face veiled, a blade in her hands, she wasn't the stupid, reckless girl who got on the Queen's Gambit and threw her life away. She was faceless and nameless. She was one of many.

If she ran fast enough, disappeared thoroughly enough, then maybe her regrets would never find her again.

***

**2017**

The Waverider landed on a bare patch of earth high up in the mountains. 

In the center of the plateau, a single woman clothed all in black was kneeling. The appearance of the timeship did nothing to alter her demeanor. She rose smoothly to her feet when Sara walked down the ramp. Her expression never shifted, remained blank and calm as Sara approached.

"Nyssa," Sara said warmly. For so, so many reasons, she might never have come back here at all - but she embraced Nyssa without hesitation.

"Sara." Anyone else might have missed the relief in Nyssa's voice. Sara knew her too well. Her arms came up around Sara as if they'd never parted, and for a moment they clung to each other. "Your journey, did you-"

"Find what I was looking for?" Sara glanced over her shoulder at the Waverider. A wry smile came onto her face. "Not... exactly."

"Your clothes," Nyssa said, laughing briefly as she reached out to brush her fingers across Sara's white Canary get-up.

"I don't think I'm a little yellow bird anymore."

"You flew away long ago."

"It's funny, though. I always seem to find my way back," she admitted. "... Come with me." It was impulsive and rash; it was something she had wanted to do for a long, long time. She stepped back and offered Nyssa her hand without any real expectation that she would take it.

"I wish that I could go, Sara. I would rather spend a lifetime searching for you than spend another moment in this place, but I still have my duties."

"To _who_? Come on, Nyssa. There's nothing left for you here anymore. There never was. Fly away with me this time."

After a single moment that held a lifetime of hesitation and defiance, Nyssa bent down to to pick up her sword. Then she took Sara's hand.

When the Waverider lifted off from the ground, it left ripples in the dust in its wake.


End file.
